General Stanley McChrystal might get fired

[Kuya]

It would seem that he gave an interview in the Rolling Stones magazine where he was critical of key Obama aids and also critical of Obama himself. He was summoned by the White House to explain himself. McChrystal seems to have been complaining about the lack of trust and commitment to his war strategy (which most people deemed a failure from the start). Do you guys think he should be fired? His comments probably amount to insubordination.

Some quotes:

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington to explain derogatory comments about President Barack Obama and his colleagues, administration officials said Tuesday.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who publicly apologized Tuesday for using "poor judgment" in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, has been ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. He'll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, these officials said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has told McChrystal of his "deep disappointment" over the article, a spokesman said.

The interview describes McChrystal, 55, as "disappointed" in his first Oval Office meeting with Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start. Obama appointed McChrystal to lead the Afghan effort in May 2009. Last fall, though, Obama called McChrystal on the carpet for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops.

"I found that time painful," McChrystal said in the article, on newsstands Friday. "I was selling an unsellable position."

Obama agreed to dispatch an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan only after months of study that many in the military found frustrating. And the White House's troop commitment was coupled with a pledge to begin bringing them home in July 2011, in what counterinsurgency strategists advising McChrystal regarded as an arbitrary deadline.

In the interview, McChrystal he said he felt betrayed by the man the White House chose to be his diplomatic partner, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry. If Eikenberry had the same doubts, McChrystal said he never expressed them until a leaked internal document threw a wild card into the debate over whether to add more troops last November. In the document, Eikenberry said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not a reliable partner for the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal was hired to execute.

McChrystal accused the ambassador of giving himself cover.

"Here's one that covers his flank for the history books," McChrystal told the magazine. "Now, if we fail, they can say 'I told you so.'"

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Kabul, said Eikenberry and McChrystal "are fully committed to the president's strategy and to working together as one civilian-military team."

Link where the quotes are from

The Rolling Stones article in question

[BerenTebogo]

You want to be a part of that structure you follow the rules. End of story.

What goes for us civilians will never, ever, ever fly for military personnel, especially at that rank.

He'll be fired, and well he should be.

[Kuya]

I believe he also made some negative comments about the vice president. I haven't read the Rolling Stones article in full, but this site says he said:

McChrystal is said to have asked “Who’s that?” at the mention of Joe Biden’s name, and to have suggested that Amb. Eikenberry leaked memos critical of McChrystal’s planned counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan because he wanted to cover himself against harsh criticism if the war went badly wrong. His staffers, interviewed for the piece, were even more derisive of Obama insiders.

[Correction]

It is really unfortunate that one cannot be simultaneously empowered to improve the war effort while correctly criticizing the tactical decisions made in running said war.

[Abandon]

He'll be fired, more than likely, but what Sath said is correct. We cannot publicly speak out against the president, which is why we're not supposed to partake in any political rallies or whatnot. As someone in his position, he should've known better, and if he ISN'T fired, i plan on running back to the people who took my pay the 2 times i went to NJP and demand my fucking money back >.>

[Gadritan]

You want to be a part of that structure you follow the rules. End of story.

What goes for us civilians will never, ever, ever fly for military personnel, especially at that rank.

He'll be fired, and well he should be.

^

It's a job. You talk shit about your boss within earshot, yes, you'll be shit canned.

[Lucavi]

Yes he will, and with good reason. If I could slander my boss and senior staff (not that I'd want to, because they kick ass, but still) and not get fired for it, I probably would.

[Dimmauk]

Everyone knows you are supposed to "retire" first, then you can talk shit about the president. The guy is a moron.

[Effluo]

It's almost a given he will be fired from his position. Not much else they can do to him though. Will he ever see a high power position again, most likely not, but he's got his 4 stars and it will literally take an act of congress to do much more than a letter of reprimand and put his ass at a desk somewhere.

Should he be fired, well.... From the prospective of the Military, yea 100%. You don't talk shit about the CINC, even if he's not you're favorite person. I know of a few people who got in some serious shit for talking about Clinton after the whole Lewinsky thing.

Definitely should not have done this interveiw either. In his position, you talk to other 4 stars and shit to vent your frustrations, not Rolling fucking Stone. He should have honestly had better judgement. But hey, I give him props for telling everyone how much he don't get along with our dear President.

[Cephius]

So basically he was butthurt that Obama didn't take his sage advice and just hand over tens of thousands of troops without investigating how they would be used? That's it?

Oh, and this:

The general prides himself on being sharper and ballsier than anyone else, but his brashness comes with a price: Although McChrystal has been in charge of the war for only a year, in that short time he has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict. Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as "shortsighted," saying it would lead to a state of "Chaos-istan." The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to McChrystal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile

Yeah, seems like this guy really didn't know when to shut his stupid mouth.

[Cephius]

Wow, reading more of this article... this guy is one major fuckup. This exerpt shows his morality is a joke and he was just a Bush fanboy/puppet:

By some accounts, McChrystal's career should have been over at least two times by now. As Pentagon spokesman during the invasion of Iraq, the general seemed more like a White House mouthpiece than an up-and-coming commander with a reputation for speaking his mind. When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made his infamous "stuff happens" remark during the looting of Baghdad, McChrystal backed him up. A few days later, he echoed the president's Mission Accomplished gaffe by insisting that major combat operations in Iraq were over. But it was during his next stint – overseeing the military's most elite units, including the Rangers, Navy Seals and Delta Force – that McChrystal took part in a cover-up that would have destroyed the career of a lesser man.

After Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former-NFL-star-turned-Ranger, was accidentally killed by his own troops in Afghanistan in April 2004, McChrystal took an active role in creating the impression that Tillman had died at the hands of Taliban fighters. He signed off on a falsified recommendation for a Silver Star that suggested Tillman had been killed by enemy fire. (McChrystal would later claim he didn't read the recommendation closely enough – a strange excuse for a commander known for his laserlike attention to minute details.) A week later, McChrystal sent a memo up the chain of command, specifically warning that President Bush should avoid mentioning the cause of Tillman's death. "If the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public," he wrote, it could cause "public embarrassment" for the president.

"The false narrative, which McChrystal clearly helped construct, diminished Pat's true actions," wrote Tillman's mother, Mary, in her book Boots on the Ground by Dusk. McChrystal got away with it, she added, because he was the "golden boy" of Rumsfeld and Bush, who loved his willingness to get things done, even if it included bending the rules or skipping the chain of command. Nine days after Tillman's death, McChrystal was promoted to major general.

Yeah, big shocker he doesn't get along with Obama, who refuses to let him do fuck-all over there without any oversight.

[Kuya]

Andrew Bacevich has commented that today's generals are pretty subpar. Only good at winning battles, and never good at strategy.

[Cephius]

Yeah the article mentions how he's one of those COIN guys who think the military should basically be ingrained in the society and government of a failed nation while it rebuilds, which obviously can take fucking decades. Moronic.

Again, it's clear this guy is a Bush lapdog who doesn't like his new master.

[Tubie]

They will force him to resign, they have to be very careful with how they handle this.

[*Shinzon*]

They will force him to resign, they have to be very careful with how they handle this.

They can hang him out to dry as well. They could, with a bit of mastery, blame the entire failure of their war plan on him. That might get ugly though so I agree with the point about handling it carefully.

[Neosutra]

It is really unfortunate that one cannot be simultaneously empowered to improve the war effort while correctly criticizing the tactical decisions made in running said war.

Not really that simple. It is a direct violation of UCMJ to do what he did. I'd lose my rank/comission, he should at least be moved from his current spot.

[ringthree]

He'll be fired, more than likely, but what Sath said is correct. We cannot publicly speak out against the president, which is why we're not supposed to partake in any political rallies or whatnot. As someone in his position, he should've known better, and if he ISN'T fired, i plan on running back to the people who took my pay the 2 times i went to NJP and demand my fucking money back >.>

The US has a pretty storied history of generals that think that they are more important than the President. There is also a pretty storied history of those same generals getting smacked down. I have no doubts about the personality type that is required to become a commanding general in the US military. That personality type lends itself to creating situations such as these.

[Therin]

Again, it's clear this guy is a Bush lapdog who doesn't like his new master.

He actually voted for Obama, just sayin'.

[Korietsu]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/22...-developments/

Looks like he submitted his resignation according to TIME and CCN

[Cephius]

He actually voted for Obama, just sayin'.

He says he did, there's no way to verify that. Read the article and tell me he wasn't a Bush butt buddy